Hollywood golden era actress, Luise Rainer, has died at the age of 104. She is famed for being the first consecutive winner of Oscars in the 1930s. The Germany-born star was named best actress in 1936 and 1937 – a feat achieved by only five actors in Academy Awards history to date.
Rainer was married twice, and second husband Robert Knittel died in 1989 after their marriage of 44 years. The couple had one daughter, Francesca Knittel-Bowyer, who said her mother had died from pneumonia at her London home.
“She was bigger than life and could charm the birds out of the trees. If you saw her, you’d never forget her,” she said.
As an actress, her achievement made her a force in the golden age of Hollywood cinema, but was also a curse, making her last major film in 1943.
Rainer settled in London and made occasional appearances on film and TV. She appeared in US small screen series, The Loveboat in 1984, while her last substantial film role came in 1998, playing opposite Michael Gambon and Dominic West in The Gambler.
The actress appeared in a number of German films before being talent-spotted by Hollywood studio MGM and making her debut in 1935. Rainer spent much of her post-Hollywood life living in London
Just a year later she scooped an Academy Award for her performance in The Great Ziegfeld, playing the legendary theatrical impresario’s wife. In one famous scene, her face was tear-stained as she congratulated her former husband on his marriage to another actress.
The following year, her portrayal of a Chinese peasant in The Good Earth won her a second statuette, at a time when Oscar winners were disclosed some time before the ceremony.
After clashing with MGM over a lack of artistic freedom and losing out to Ingrid Bergman in Ernest Hemingway’s For Whom The Bell Tolls, she broke her contract with them.
Other actors to have collected consecutive acting awards are Spencer Tracy, Katharine Hepburn, Jason Robards and Tom Hanks.
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